


Like Ships in the Night

by Kannika



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/M, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-08-30 22:40:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8551951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kannika/pseuds/Kannika
Summary: Supermartian Soulmate AU.
Everyone gets a necklace with four blank sides at birth, and the sides change color when you meet your soulmate. The catch: they're only clues. To actually find your soulmate, you have to know where to look.
So you only have four chances to find them. And sometimes, Fate is fickle.





	

**Author's Note:**

> In the spirit of the glorious coming of Young Justice Season 3 (!!!!!!!!), have some of my weakness: SOULMATE AU.
> 
> Supermartian needs some love. PLEASE LET IT BE A THING IN SEASON THREE AGAIN MY BABIES NEED TO BE HAPPY.

**I.**

Megan’s soulmate, whoever they were, was taking their sweet time finding her.

She fidgeted with her necklace. It was a simple, unassuming thing, easy to miss if everyone didn’t know its magnitude- a small spire of gray metal with four sides. Set in each side was a sliver of stone, white by default, and these pieces were the key to finding your soulmate. When you met with them, spoke to them, even walked by them, the stone changed color in a way that resembled them. Clues, some people said, like a game. A piece of their soul becoming a part of yours, Megan’s romantic mind thought.

For some people, they met their soulmate and had a conversation with them and all four pieces clicked in a minute. For others, it was months or years of standing in a crowd and looking down to find you had passed them by and wondering _who?_

It appeared, Megan thought, that she was going to be the latter.

She stood at the counter of the charity auction that her uncle and a friend’s father were holding, running her fingers over the four sides of the necklace. It was a nervous tell- while her friends had all told her you didn’t feel when your necklace changed, it kept her attention on it. She was terrified of missing when it turned. The whole reason she was out here, in a crowd of people that made her feel tiny and like her skin was on fire, was to find her soulmate. As Artemis and Zatanna had rightly pointed out, “You have to leave the house. They’re not going to crawl through your window.”

Fair point, but an annoying one. She hated crowds. She liked being home, watching soap operas in bed with one or two friends at most. So if she was going to do this, she wanted to find her soulmate and be done with it.

“Megan!” Her uncle yelled over the din of the crowd. “Dog!”

…Dog? Megan picked her head up off her hands and focused on the people in front of her; they were moving out of the way of something and looking down. She could just barely see a blur of white darting between their legs, moving fast. Nobody appeared to be chasing after it.

She got up and moved just in time to intercept the dog- who turned out to be bigger than he had looked first glance. He came all the way up to her waist, and his teeth when he opened his mouth and barked at her were perfectly white and as sharp as knives. In spite of how fast he was running, though, when she caught at his red collar he stood perfectly still and wagged his tail at her.

Megan muttered under her breath, “Who brings their dog-?”

“Wolf!”

She jerked her head up; a boy about her age, wearing a black and red shirt and jeans, pushed through the crowd and belatedly grabbed him around the neck- a useless thing, because the dog was panting contentedly and made no move to run off again. “Bad dog!” The guy said, clipping a leash to his red collar. “Sorry about that-“

He looked up at her, but if he was saying something, she didn’t hear it. Or couldn’t remember it.

_Bam._

She was going to say something witty, something kind, something that a host would say to their guest, but it disappeared in an embarrassing squeak. Mystery guy was _hot._ Not model hot, but he had muscles and his eyes were as blue as the sky and… and it was really endearing how he was gaping at her, too, his hand slipping from the dog’s collar before he found it again.

“Hi.” She said, feeling short on breath like she’d just run a marathon. Wow. “I… like your shirt.”

He gave her a confused look; she shut her mouth fast, just smiling at him too wide. _Leave now so I can die in peace, please._ She thought, fidgeting backwards, _oh my god I’m never telling anyone about this because I don’t want to be living it right now._

He stared at her a moment more, a bit of a smile playing on his lips- a nice, sweet smile, entirely at odds with his could-crush-steel biceps- before he ducked his head fast and focused all his attention on Wolf and none on her.

“Thanks.” He said. “I’ll uh… thanks.”

Megan nodded and turned around, disappearing away into the crowd as fast as she could. Her face felt hot all over, bad enough she thought she might pass out, _oh my god what was that…_

And then she remembered the reason she was here- her necklace. It felt like a beacon around her neck. Could she be that lucky?

_Him,_ she thought fiercely, holding her necklace like a talisman, ready to turn back around in a second, _him. Please be him. Please._

But when she opened up her fist, only white marbled stone looked back at her on every side.

Megan sighed, tucked it away, and got back to work.

**II.**

Conner wasn’t having a great month.

To be honest, most of his friends liked to play it cool when it came to soulmate necklaces and so did he- but he had been thinking about it more and more as he got older, and he was in the habit of looking at its sides before he went to sleep. Everyone had a soulmate, he had heard, platonic or otherwise, and the notion… it helped. He had a bad relationship with his dad (he didn’t like to think about it much; they didn’t see each other after Ma and Pa Kent got him out, and that was all that mattered) and he had very few friends at school, so if he didn’t have a necklace to direct him to a soulmate, he wouldn’t have believed he had one at all. The concept of somebody who would spend their life with him, voluntarily or otherwise, made his head spin.

But… he had one.

He had proof. The first side of his necklace had changed from white, two and half weeks ago, to a burnished brown-red. It was a beautiful color, he thought but was too embarrassed to tell anyone, the color of someone’s hair. The girl at the charity banquet he had been cajoled into going to and run into when Wolf took off through the hall. He remembered her very clearly: her pale white skin turning pink the longer they stared at each other, her long red hair she kept fidgeting with, her simple but stunning smile. It was her, he was sure of it.

And now he was scared he was never going to find her again.

“You’ll find her.” Clark had reassured him, and he seemed mildly amused by the whole thing but his smile was genuine. “I know you will. That’s why we have the necklaces at all- because we’re meant to find them. You just need to be patient. It’ll work out.”

Conner scowled just at the memory, tightening his fist around the throttle of his motorcycle. His brother meant well, sure, but he was always a little irritable when Clark offered well-meaning advice on soulmates. He had met Lois when he started working at the newspaper, had an innocent conversation about which coffee she wanted, and they both looked down and saw their necklaces in full color. They went out on a date the next day and were married within a year. Clark freaking glowed the whole time.

So, yeah. His stupid optimism didn’t count. He didn’t screw up his first chance by being so flustered by the pretty girl in front of him he had forgotten to check and see if she was the one he was looking for in the first place.

She lived in the city, so that was where he was going back to. It was all he had to go off of- and he had only three more chances to find her. If it even _was_ her. He couldn’t remember speaking to very many people during the day, but he certainly wouldn’t have noticed if it had been somebody else. Nobody else had stood out like she had. Certainly nobody else had smiled at him in the same way- that made him feel spectacularly light-headed and not very smooth. He hadn’t really been able to get his tongue to work. She looked so kind and so pretty he couldn’t really think of anything to say so he beat a hasty retreat- and then realized the first side of his necklace had changed, but she was already gone.

“She has to be here somewhere,” he muttered to himself- a habit he had developed from talking to Wolf, who hadn’t been able to come with him. His hands tightened with stress before he made himself loosen up. “I just have to look harder.”

Yes. That was his plan. There couldn’t be that many redheads in this town, right?

He cruised along the main road that wound into town, watching the people walking on the sidewalk. It was evening, and raining, so there were only a few people now and most of them were probably going home. He was varying which times he drove to try to find her, but so far no luck. He hadn’t seen any redheads, much less her, and just in case he had his necklace tied tight to his wrist so he could watch it as he drove. So far, nothing in the evening. Maybe he could try going in the morning, and get Clark to pick up some of his chores for a few days…

He glanced down at his necklace out of habit, and as he was watching the second side changed instantaneously- to honey-brown, the same color as the girl’s beautiful eyes.

Conner slammed the brakes- and nearly caused an accident in the process-, but there was nothing there. Nobody familiar. Barely anyone on the sidewalk at all- which, he realized in the next second, meant she wasn’t on the sidewalk, but in one of the cars.

Going the opposite direction.

That he was never going to be able to find her in.

_Completely_ unfair.

He shouted _“fuck!”_ at the sky, startling a few passerby’s, and went to turn around to go home and vent to Clark. His optimism was going to be particularly hard to stomach today.

**III.**

Megan had spent more time outside in the last two months than the five years previous to that, and the result was this: her soulmate necklace had two sides and she had no meeting with her soulmate.

She hadn’t realized until the second side turned black that the first color had been white- which was so entirely unfair, because it could have turned at any time and she would never have known. She hoped it was recently, and not when she was a kid, or she had absolutely no ideas. She hadn’t recognized when her second stone turned black. It just wasn’t, then it was, right as she was turning it in her hand, and she had shouted loud enough her uncle swerved the car into the shoulder but there was no way to find them. Her soulmate was somebody in one of the cars passing her by. _So unfair._

She hoped, though, that it was the one she had felt so sure of at the charity auction. It would fit. She remembered him still, so often her daydreams were starting to have his face (which would be really awkward if she was wrong): tan skin, a firm jaw, black hair, serious blue eyes that looked like they didn’t smile much. She wondered what white stood for, if it was the color of his soul. White meant blank. It was the absence of color- a little worrying.

Artemis thought she was overthinking it. “He has white skin.” She had told her. “He had a white dog. There’s nothing mystical about it- they’re just things about them. One of my colors is carrot-juice orange, and I guarantee you Wally’s hair has nothing to do with his soul.”

Megan didn’t think so. There had been something about him when they met- like he didn’t know where he was or what he was supposed to be doing, and not just in the venue. She could sympathize. And when the second color was black… Sure, black meant angry, but anger was better than feeling nothing at all. Storm clouds were black and all-encompassing, but there was part of her that came screaming alive when the winds actually hit. She could take it.

Maybe he had black hair and she overcomplicating things. She just wanted to _find him._

She couldn’t just spend all of her time wandering the city, though- it was time to go home. Another unsuccessful day. She was trying to keep her optimism but it was getting kind of difficult.

Megan stepped onto the train, paid her fare (it was expensive soulmate-hunting, she was lucky her uncle was understanding), and took a seat by the window to settle in for the ride home.

And saw him.

Adrenaline shot through her, and she jumped to her feet. “Hey!” she shouted through the glass- nothing- and ran for the door. It was already shut. “Excuse me! I need to get off, now! Please!”

The driver looked at her with undisguised sympathy; Megan realized she was clenching her necklace in her fist, feeling the metal hot under her fingers, and made herself let go of it. “I’m sorry.” He said, sounding sincere. “I can’t. We’ve already left. We can’t stop until we get to the next station.”

And by then, he would be gone. Megan took a deep breath and turned around. That was him, she was sure of it, and he wasn’t going to hear her through the window so she just watched him. His already familiar tall and muscled form, and the white dog at his side, and a red rose in his gloved hand that made jealous, ugly bitterness rise up in her throat. He was _hers,_ she knew it, she felt it in her gut and her heart and her soul, and that rose wasn’t for her. He didn’t know her.

He didn’t feel it, because he didn’t turn around even though she strained her eyes to watch him through the crowd until he disappeared.

She took a shuddering breath, in, out, bracing herself, and unclenched her hand to look at her necklace.

When she saw the sliver of red on her necklace- vibrant, red like blood, red like the rose he was carrying, red like the shirt he wore the first day they met that she said she liked on a whim and made him light up- she fell to her knees.

**IV.**

With three sides of his necklace filled and no idea what the girl’s name was, to say Conner was desperate was an understatement.

In equal parts, he wanted to hide his necklace in a pocket where nobody could see it and just stand in a public place and hold it up until something changed. To have three sides filled and nobody with a matching necklace at your side… bad luck. Fate laughing in your face. You got in your own way like a fool. None of them made him feel anything but an intense need to punch the people staring in the face, and according to Clark that ‘wasn’t socially acceptable’.

He hadn’t seen it change, again. He had been in town to buy a rose Zatanna told him to get, for her fortune-telling, and right after he pushed through the busiest part of town he glanced down and stopped short. The next side was black, like the dress she had been wearing that night at the party (okay, maybe he was reaching, but it worked), and he stomped back to Zatanna in a foul mood.

She seemed genuinely confused by it, and when he relayed the story to her she sighed and put her head in her hands like he had failed her. “No.” She groaned. “Why can’t I get this _right?_ You were supposed to meet her and _give it to her._ I saw that you were going to find her!”

She meant well, but Conner had to leave before he lost his temper at her. Terrific. Another hit and miss. Nobody else had luck this bad. What the hell had he done in a past life to deserve this?

It put him in a bit of a bad mood, so Clark had suggested he go to the high school he would be attending in fall to check it out. Conner only accepted because it was in the city and he could use it as an excuse to keep looking. Maybe she went to the high school and would be there in summer on an errand, too. Maybe he would walk slow enough through downtown, never taking his eyes off the crowd for a second, that he would find her passing through.

_Right,_ he thought, scoffing to himself, _maybe I should bring Wolf and see if he can sniff her out or something. That would be more useful._

Actually, he would have to ask Clark if that was possible. He would try anything at this point. Was there an online thing for people searching for soulmates? He didn’t own a computer, but if he hadn’t found her come fall…

He slammed into somebody running from the opposite direction, and when he blinked he was on the ground and… wet?

Conner glanced down at himself. He was covered in what appeared to be paint, about five different colors of it, all over his favorite shirt and his pants and hands, and he scowled and sighed. Fantastic. Apparently this day’s search was over before it started.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!”

He knew that voice.

His head snapped up. It was her. It was the girl, the one from the charity event, the one he had been too flustered to even get a look at his necklace because he was too busy staring at her, and if he thought he had gotten dirty she looked like she had taken an actual bath in the paint. Her face was bright red and freckled and covered with paint and dust, but it was definitely her, and she was staring at him like she recognized him, too.

Conner’s hand went to his necklace, clumsy enough he nearly ripped the chain off, please, please, please-

The last side had turned: green. The kind of green that rolled over the hills that weren’t covered in grain in the summer, the color of the leaves on the wildflowers in the meadows, that meant life and vibrancy…

The exact shade of green paint that was all over her hands and shirt and face.

She laughed, but it sounded like it got caught in her throat; under the paint, her face was bright red, but she held up her necklace for him to see all four sides. White like Wolf’s fur; black like his hair; red like his shirt; blue like his eyes. Her eyes were fixed on it like it was holy, and then she looked up at him hesitantly.

“This isn’t how this was supposed to go.” She blurted, and he was about to feel self-conscious until she covered her face with her hands. She meant the paint, then. Or maybe bumping into him. Either one. “Uh. Uh, I’m so sorry, this wasn’t supposed to go like this...”

“At least you’re not in a car this time.” Conner blurted back.

She laughed- not cruel, laughing at him, but laughing with him. It was a nice laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, that sucked.” She agreed. “Or… on a train.”

Was that what had happened? That made a lot of sense.

An awkward pause.

“I’m Megan.” The girl said breathlessly. “Megan Morse.”

“…Conner Kent.”

As soon as the introductions were out of the way, Conner allowed himself to breathe. There was no getting separated and not knowing how to find her now. Not this time. This time he had actually found her.

He had found her. His soulmate. And it was a stupid, sappy, Clark-worthy thought, but he had a feeling falling in love with her was going to be very, very easy.

Megan tucked her sticking-together hair behind her ears with both hands. She hadn’t taken her eyes off him yet, and she hadn’t stopped smiling. “Conner.” She repeated. His name sounded nice on her tongue. “Um. So, if we’re soulmates, is it weird if I hug you? A handshake feels too… too…”

“Old?”

She laughed, apparently took that as a yes, and launched herself forward to wrap her arms around his neck- and then pulled back with a squeak as some of the green paint smeared from her face to his. “Oh, sorry!"

Conner laughed and wiped it off with the side of his arm, and Megan joined him. Awkward, yes, but sweet, and her laugh was like sunshine, and she smelled like paint and cookies, and his head felt light again- in a good way.

He could live with this, for the rest of his life, and never complain.


End file.
